Terrelle Pryor, who completed only one pass against the Saints, is sacked by New Orleans' Glenn Foster on Friday.

Terrelle Pryor, who completed only one pass against the Saints, is...

The Raiders, unlike the Giants, don't have a lunatic fringe.

The Raiders have a sanity fringe. That prudent group would like head coach Dennis Allen to start Matt Flynn at quarterback and stay with him. It's the safe, traditional course of action. Flynn has conventional skills, potentially is a sound game-manager. And you want stability, right?

Wrong, says the lunatic core. Those folks want Terrelle Pryor. They want two things Raiders fans haven't had much of in recent years: hope and excitement.

Friday in New Orleans, when Flynn took five sacks early, looking shaky behind a leaky offensive line, Raiders fans were blowing up Twitter, clamoring for Pryor. In came Pryor, who went 1-for-5 passing, for 9 yards.

Suddenly, from those tweeting Raiders fans: crickets.

It's going to be a roller-coaster ride in Raiderland, folks. Flynn will start, but Allen said of Pryor, "He will play." That's Allen being either bold and creative, or indecisive and desperate. Or merely pragmatic. Or all five of those things.

I asked Allen on Sunday if he might go with a nontraditional quarterback setup, bringing Pryor off the bench in situational or relief roles.

"I think we've said all along we want to be able to have a package of plays Terrelle is real comfortable in," Allen said. "In answer to your question, I don't know what's traditional or nontraditional. We're going to put the guys out there we think give us the best chance to have success."

What's traditional is for the starting quarterback to play until all hope is lost. The Raiders probably won't have that luxury. So, Mr. Pryor: Stay loose and keep your helmet handy.

In Sunday's midday scrimmage, Pryor was a star. Sharing snaps with Flynn, Pryor connected long and short. He took command.

"I was throwing lasers today, on point," Pryor said after practice. "That's how I expect to be from here on out. I want to be great. It's not about thinking if I'm going to get playing time or not, it's about me mastering my craft and being a leader on the field."

This is a whole new game for Pryor. As a rookie, he had no place, zero role or identity. He suited up for one game. Last year he was inactive the first 11 games, played in three, finally starting the last day of the season because (some insiders guess) owner Mark Davis, a non-meddler, told Allen he wanted to see what Pryor could do.

Pryor somehow escaped the offseason purge of the late Al Davis' favored players. Pryor worked hard to remake his throwing mechanics and has emerged - in the eyes of Raider Nation's lunatic core - as a silver-and-black version of Colin Kaepernick.

Pryor won't go that far. He quickly admits he's not in Kaepernick's league, but is willing to work to close the gap. Pryor agreed that Kaepernick's breakthrough last season helped Pryor, showing the football world what a big, strong, fast, running quarterback could do for a team.

Conveniently, the two are connected.

"He's actually one of my good friends," Pryor said. "We text back and forth every once in a while. We're connected with the same lady, Novice Johnson."

The Miami-based Johnson apparently is something of a cheerleady life coach. She has been working with Pryor for about five years, and more recently with Kaepernick.

He said he and Kaepernick "ended up connecting through her. ... She just brings hope, she's a hopeful person. ... She just makes sure we (Pryor and Kaepernick) stay together and lean on each other."

Pryor is more outgoing (to the media) than Kaepernick, but they have a lot in common. Both came into the NFL as long-shot projects, physically gifted but with suspect QB tools.

Both work hard. Kaepernick is a morning person, sweating on the field well before sunrise, while Pryor says he does his extra work at night. He said he hit the Raiders' practice field by himself Saturday night from 9:30 to about 10:45, alternating weight-lifting sets with blocks of drop-back-and-set-up drills. He said he will practice about 200 drop-backs in a typical session.

In the offseason, Pryor consulted with Southern California throwing guru Tom House, and now is working hard to lock in his new mechanics.

Pryor showed enough improvement as a passer early in training camp to cause general manager Reggie McKenzie to back off courting Vince Young as a backup to Flynn. (Young eventually signed with the Packers.)

Pryor seems to have played himself into the backup role. The Raiders are designing packages for Pryor - one-step drops and read options out of the pistol, a la Kaep.

From early indications - a porous offensive line, a non-impressive Darren McFadden - it's going to be hard for Flynn to dazzle, so there's sure to be windows of opportunity for Pryor.

It should get interesting, maybe even confusing. This does not bode well for the Raiders' sanity fringe.